“—yeah, it sounds crazy, I know, but do you know what rabies does to a dog? I mean, what it really does, the biological—?”
Donald leaned close to his reflection and studied the decorative coins. The number and slogan on each one represented a deployed group. Or was it a battalion? He couldn’t remember. His sister Charlotte would know. She was over there somewhere.
Before Donald could consider the long odds, he scanned a collection of framed photographs for her, a wall of pictures in the back of the glass cabinet featuring servicemen and servicewomen huddled around the Senator. He searched the faces among the sand-colored fatigues, all those smiles a long way from home.
“—you think the CDC knows something we don’t? I mean, forget weaponized anthrax, imagine legions of biters breaking out all over the place—”
Most were Army photographs. And, of course, Charlotte wasn’t in them. Donald studied one from the Navy. The Senator was standing on the deck of a ship with a crowd of men and women in neatly pressed uniforms. More smiles on warring faces. The ship may have been underway. The Senator’s feet were planted wide, a breeze lifting his white hair, giving him a fierce mohawk—or maybe the comical tuft of a cockatiel. Above the group, stenciled in white paint on gunmetal gray: USS The Sullivans.
“Hey, aren’t you even a little nervous about this?”
Donald realized he’d been asked a question. His focus drifted from the collection of photographs to the reflection of the chatty congressman in the glass. The man looked to be in his mid-thirties, probably Donald’s age.
“Am I nervous about zombies?” He laughed. “No. Can’t say that I am.”
The congressman stepped closer, his eyes drifting toward the imposing uniform that stood propped up as if a warrior’s chest remained inside. “No,” the man said. “About meeting him.”
The door to the reception area opened, bleeps from the phones on the other side leaking out.
“Congressman Keene?”
Donald turned away from one last display: a piece of shrapnel, a Purple Heart, a note from a wounded soldier expressing his undying thanks. An elderly receptionist stood in the doorway, her white blouse and black skirt highlighting a thin and athletic frame.
“Senator Thurman will see you now,” she said.
Donald patted the congressman from Atlanta on the shoulder as he stepped past.
“Hey, good luck,” the gentleman stammered after him.
Donald smiled. He fought the temptation to turn and tell the man that he knew the Senator well enough, that he had been bounced on his knee back when he was but a child. Only—Donald was too busy concealing his own nerves to bother. This was different. He stepped through the deeply paneled door of rich hardwoods and entered the Senator’s noisy inner sanctum. This wasn’t like passing through a foyer to pick up a man’s daughter for a date. This was the pressure of meeting as colleagues when Donald still felt like that same toddler from his bronco-knee days.
“Through here,” the receptionist said. She guided Donald between pairs of wide and busy desks, a dozen phones chirping in short bursts that sounded more medical than senatorial. Young men and women in suits and crisp blouses double-fisted receivers while somehow remaining calm. Their bored expressions suggested that this was a normal workload for a weekday morning. It wasn’t as if the world was coming to an end, or anything.
Donald reached out a hand as he passed one of the desks, brushing the wood with his fingertips. Mahogany. The aides here had desks nicer than his own. And the decor: the plush carpet, the broad and ancient crown molding, the antique tile ceiling, the dangling light fixtures that may have been actual crystal. Everything was noticeably more opulent in the Dirksen Senate building. It was the House of Lords compared to Rayburn across the street, Donald’s own House of Commons.
At the end of the buzzing and bleeping room, a paneled door opened and disgorged Congressman Mick Webb, just finished with his meeting. Mick didn’t notice Donald, was too absorbed by the open manila folder he held in front of him.
Donald stopped and waited for his colleague and old college acquaintance to approach. “So,” he asked Mick. “How did it go?”
Mick looked up and snapped the folder shut. He tucked it under his arm and nodded. “Yeah, yeah. It went great.” He smiled. “Sorry if we ran long. The old man couldn’t get enough of me.”
Donald laughed. “No problem.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “I was making new friends.”
Mick smiled. “I bet.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll see you back at Rayburn.”
“Sure thing.” Mick slapped him on the arm with the folder and headed for the exit. Donald caught the impatient glare from the Senator’s receptionist and hurried over. She waved him through the old door and into the dimly lit office before shutting it tight against the bleeping phones.
“Congressman Keene.”
Senator Paul Thurman stood from behind his desk and stretched out a hand. He flashed a familiar smile, one Donald had come to recognize as much from photos and TV as from his childhood. Despite Thurman’s age—he had to be pushing seventy if he wasn’t already there—the Senator was trim and fit. His oxford shirt hugged a military frame; a thick neck bulged out of his knotted tie; his white hair remained as crisp and orderly as an enlisted man’s.
Donald crossed the dark room and accepted the hand that had clasped that of so many presidents.
“Good to see you, sir.”
As his fist was pumped up and down, he imagined flash bulbs popping and expensive cameras clicking wildly. He almost turned to the side and adopted a frozen and smiling pose, thinking the Senator would get the joke at once. Fortunately, the urge passed. Donald reminded himself that he wasn’t there to date the Senator’s daughter but to serve alongside him.
“Please, sit.” Thurman released Donald’s hand and gestured to one of the chairs across from his desk. Donald turned and lowered himself into the bright red leather, the gold grommets along the arm like sturdy rivets in a steel beam.
“How’s Helen?”
“Helen?” Donald straightened his tie. “She’s great. She’s back in Savannah. She really enjoyed seeing you at the reception.”
“She’s a beautiful woman, your wife.”
“Thank you, sir.” Donald fought to relax, which didn’t help. The office had the pall of dusk, even with the overhead lights on. The clouds outside had turned nasty—low and dark. If it rained, he would have to take the tunnel back to his office. He hated the tunnel. They could carpet it and hang those little chandeliers at intervals, but he could still tell he was below ground. The tunnels in Washington made him feel like a rat scurrying through a sewer. It always seemed like the roof was about to cave in.
“How’s the job treating you so far?”
Donald shifted his gaze away from the clouds. “The job’s good,” he said. “It’s busy, but good.”
He started to ask the Senator how Anna was doing, but the door behind him opened before he could. The discordant cries of the busy phones disturbed the quiet as the thin receptionist entered and delivered two bottles of water. Donald thanked her, twisted the cap off, and saw that it had been pre-opened. Just like at that fancy steakhouse the lobbyist from the PAGW had taken him to.
“I hope you’re not too busy to work on something for me.” Senator Thurman raised an eyebrow. Donald took a sip of water and wondered if that was a skill one could master, that eyebrow lift. It was effective as hell. It made him want to jump to attention and salute.